"If you thought the coronavirus presented difficult policy questions, don't worry -- we have science. ...

"The invocation of science as the ultimate authority capable of settling questions of how we should govern ourselves is a persistent feature of modern Western life going back several centuries, and has always been a mistake. It is especially so in this crisis, when so much is still unknown about the coronavirus and immensely complicated and consequential public-policy questions are in play. ...

"Of course, our policymakers should be informed by facts and reason, but science has a limited competency. Once you are outside a lab setting and dealing with matters of public policy, questions of values and how to strike a balance between competing priorities are involved and they simply can't be settled by people in white lab coats. ...

"Obviously, science already has made an enormous contribution to our fight against the coronavirus, and may -- through therapies or a vaccine -- go a long way to solving this crisis. But life is not an equation, and neither is politics or policy.

"We, as a self-governing people, will have to decide the important questions about how to respond to the coronavirus going forward, not the doctors on TV or the researchers in the labs."

Read entire article here.

"The business community is pressuring the White House and Congress to shield companies from lawsuits as they seek to reopen, setting up a politically charged battle as coronavirus restrictions around the country begin to ease.

"As Congress considers more legislation to jolt the economy back to life, Democrats, labor unions and trial attorneys have voiced fierce opposition to a liability shield for employers. But top Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration appear eager to extend businesses of all sizes a layer of legal protection from any coronavirus-related litigation.

"The debate over liability protections has quickly emerged as a new sticking point as Congress weighs another round of coronavirus relief aid. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said the GOP-controlled Senate won't pass a bill providing more assistance to state and local governments if it doesn't include those legal protections.

"'Imagine you are a businessman thinking about reopening, and you've heard that the trial lawyers all over the country are sharpening their pencils getting ready to sue you, claiming that you didn't engage in proper distancing or other issues related to health and safety,' McConnell said this week on Fox News.

"His remarks came on the heels of similar comments from Larry Kudlow, President Trump's top economic adviser.

"'You've got to give the businesses some confidence here that if something happens, and it may not be their fault -- the disease is an infectious disease -- if something happens, you can't take them out of business, Kudlow said on CNBC."

Read entire article here.

"Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is still alive, has endorsed Joe Biden's presidential campaign.

"That is inspiring: A corrupt, decrepit, exhausted relic of the 1990s has given her blessing to a corrupt, decrepit, exhausted relic of the 1970s. Mrs. Clinton already has lost an election to Donald Trump, a visitor from the 1980s, and Joe Biden might very well do the same.

"(Or not.) ...

"Mrs. Clinton came to prominence when most Americans had never sent an email or heard of a web browser. Joe Biden was elected to the Senate in the first year that color televisions outsold black-and-white models. He comes from the other side of a great divide -- and that is not only a matter of age. 'Hillary Endorses Biden' is a headline that belongs on newsprint, like 'Dewey Defeats Truman.'

"The response to Mrs. Clinton's endorsement in 2020 was, 'So, what?'

"The day after tomorrow, it will be, 'Who?'"

"Michael Flynn is the victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in modern times -- an innocent man who was unfairly targeted by the FBI, wrongfully prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller, and coerced into a guilty plea under threat.

"New court documents finally handed over to Flynn's lawyer contain exculpatory evidence that has been long sought, yet concealed until now. The charge against him should be dismissed. Then, he should sue the very people and government that persecuted him under the pretext of a legitimate prosecution.

"The unvarnished truth is that the retired Army lieutenant general and former National Security Adviser never did anything wrong and committed no crimes. He was set up by unscrupulous FBI officials, then relentlessly pursued by Mueller's team of overzealous prosecutors who were desperate to show that President Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election.

"Of course, no such conspiracy with Moscow ever existed. It was a fantasy built on the sand of Russian disinformation and lies.The FBI knew it but didn't care. As I wrote in a column as far back as 2018, the FBI lied to Flynn to ensnare him in the crime of making a false statement, even though Flynn did not lie at all about his perfectly legal and appropriate conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. ...

"So, how is it possible to charge someone with lying to the FBI when the only witnesses -- the two agents -- determined that the person they interviewed did not lie? The answer is quite simple: you cannot bring such a prosecution. Yet, Mueller did it anyway. The goal was to put pressure on Flynn to say something incriminating about Trump, even if that meant inventing a story that prosecutors wanted to hear."

Read entire article here.

"Democratic leaders in Congress continued on Sunday to remain quiet on the sexual assault allegations leveled against their party's presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, even as anger over the accusations mounted from the party's more progressive wing.

"Neither House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., nor Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have made any public comment about the allegations by Tara Reade, a staffer for Biden in 1993, that the then-senator from Delaware sexually assaulted her.

"Pelosi and Schumer's offices did not return Fox News request for comment.

"There is growing anger from both progressive Democrats and supporters of the #MeToo movement about the lack of response from Democratic leaders toward the allegations. The hashtag #dropoutbiden was trending on Twitter on Sunday -- until it was allegedly removed -- and many supporters for former Democratic presidential primary hopeful Bernie Sanders are calling on Biden to suspend his campaign for the White House. ...

"Over the weekend, a video emerged from 1993 in which Reade's mother appears to allude to the sexual assault accusation during an interview with CNN's Larry King."

"Though often omitted from public conversations about pandemic solutions, the U.S. military has a huge stake in fighting deadly infectious diseases and quietly has been researching novel treatments for years at its secretive biodefense lab at Fort Detrick.

"The reasons are mission obvious. With soldiers deployed in exotic locations around the world where novel viruses like Ebola, Zika or bird and swine flus can strike with lighting speed and alarming fatality, the Pentagon wants to make sure it has treatments to keep its forces from being disabled

"It's from that body of research that an intriguing potential remedy, an organic extract, has emerged. And of all sources, it comes from the common but toxic flowering plant oleander.

"Dr. John Dye, chief of viral immunology at the USAMRIID lab at Fort Detrick, confirmed to Just the News that his team began testing the extract known as oleandrin a few years ago and found it was effective in fighting the Ebola and Marburg viruses. The Army lab is now ramping up a rapid plan to test oleandrin against COVID-19."

Read entire article here.

"OK, so the country has been shut down for about a month, and we're seeing cracks start to form. While some epidemiologists are talking about keeping things closed down for months longer, we're also seeing growing public protests around the nation, as people call for restarting things.

"Others shame them as 'virus deniers' and accuse the protesters of wanting people to die. But it's hard not to notice a class divide here. As with so many of America's conflicts, the divide is between the people in the political/managerial class on the one hand and the people in the working class on the other. And as usual, the smugness and authoritarianism are pretty much all on one side. ...

"There really are two Americas here: Those still getting a paycheck from government, corporations or universities, and those who are unemployed, or seeing their small businesses suffer due to shutdowns. And the America still getting paid is, so far, not showing a whole lot of sympathy for the America that isn't.

"That's a formula for disaster, and it has been made worse by the heavy-handed approach taken by some government officials enforcing quarantines. We've seen news story after news story of officials going after people whose actions pose no danger of contagion -- lone joggers on a beach, lone paddleboarders off the California coast, a father throwing a ball to his daughter in a public park -- and every time that happens the shutdown loses moral authority."

Read entire article here.

"The White House and Congress have reached a deal on a new funding package that will replenish a lending program meant to aid small businesses hurt by the novel coronavirus outbreak, two administration officials confirmed Tuesday. ...

"The deal totals more than $480 billion and appropriates $320 billion for the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), $60 billion of which is set aside for small lenders and community financial institutions. It also includes $60 billion for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program; $25 billion for testing; and $75 billion for hospitals, according to details released later."

"The best economic idea we've heard in response to the coronavirus crisis is a payroll-tax suspension. President Trump restated his support for it at a recent press briefing, and for good reason: It would reward work and production rather than the growth of government. Republicans should rally around the idea as the centerpiece of their next economic revival plan.

"The plan we recommend would cancel all payroll-tax collections from May 1 to the end of the year. This would suspend the Social Security and Medicare tax, known as FICA, which takes 7.65% from a worker's paycheck, with another 7.65% paid by employers, up to $137,700 of income. Self-employed Americans, usually socked with the full 15.3% payroll tax, would also find relief.

"Every worker in America would get a substantial pay raise for the remainder of the year, but because the tax is regressive, lowest-wage workers would be helped the most. The majority of low- and middle-income workers pay more payroll tax than income tax. Even minimum-wage workers would see a nice boost in their paychecks while their employers would pay less too.

"By reducing employer payroll costs, this plan would encourage firms to start hiring. Several economic studies document what common sense would tell us: Lowering the tax on employment leads to more of it. Because the tax relief would be temporary, businesses would gain an incentive to hurry up and hire right away, or as soon as their work resumes. There is no time to waste: The U.S. needs to put perhaps 20 million people back to work."

"Preliminary results from government lab experiments show that the coronavirus does not survive long in high temperatures and high humidity, and is quickly destroyed by sunlight, providing evidence from controlled tests of what scientists believed -- but had not yet proved -- to be true.

"A briefing on the preliminary results, marked for official use only and obtained by Yahoo News, offers hope that summertime may offer conditions less hospitable for the virus, though experts caution it will by no means eliminate, or even necessarily decrease, new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The results, however, do add an important piece of knowledge that the White House's science advisers have been seeking as they scramble to respond to the spreading pandemic.

"The study found that the risk of 'transmission from surfaces outdoors is lower during daylight' and under higher temperature and humidity conditions. 'Sunlight destroys the virus quickly,' reads the briefing.

"While that may provide some good news about the outlook for outdoor activities, the Department of Homeland Security briefing on the results cautions that enclosed areas with low humidity, such as airplane cabins, 'may require additional care to minimize risk of transmission.'"